Ninety-year-old Paul Smith looks back on an extraordinary spy story from the era of the Cold War, a story well documented with the aid of contemporary photographs.

In the spring of 1959, Paul Smith was contacted by a boyhood friend in the Intelligence Service, who asked if he would be willing to take part in a trip by car to Moscow. On agreeing, he was instructed to buy a 180-model Mercedes. The car was taken to a workshop not far from Oslo where, he was told, ‘a few minor alterations’ were to be made to it. The journey to Moscow took place under the auspices of the Soviet travel agency, Intourist, which had just begun to open up for ‘ordinary tourist visits’ to cities such as Leningrad and Moscow.

For three dramatic weeks Paul and his companion drove round and about in the Soviet Union. On more than one occasion they ‘inadvertently’ took a wrong turning, only to be stopped at checkpoints by armed guards and sent back the way they had come.